


Construct Our Own Downfalls

by HankTalking



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Crushes, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:40:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27719672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HankTalking/pseuds/HankTalking
Summary: demo thoughts:“haha what if i pretended to like soldier to make him embarrassed”*38 seconds later*“o fuck”
Relationships: Demoman/Soldier (Team Fortress 2)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 53





	Construct Our Own Downfalls

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in one sitting on thanksgiving eve because i'm Team Fortress Brained now. Plz be gentle

Demo could see it, _everyone_ could bloody see it—or if they couldn’t, they were blinder than him, even with two sets of eyeballs to them each. Yet nobody wanted to make mention of it, even though making Soldier squirm was _prime_ entertainment material, far better than whatever literature Pyro was passing out to alleviate the boredom in between matches. Soldier was such a gruff, ornery sonovabitch that any opportunity to humiliate his nigh-impregnable ego should’ve been met with the upmost gusto.

Yet, no one had taken the bait. Could Demo truly be the only one who’d noticed this particular weak point? Well, if he was, he was the one in the best position to milk it for all it was worth.

He’d gotten his first hint after a particularly magnificent victory, just one of those days when everything seemed to go right and BLU found themselves in perfect harmony as the REDs caved under a whole afternoon of flawlessly timed assaults. Demo had clapped Soldier on the shoulder, and Engie had started talking about his latest run in with the RED Spy and describing the _exact_ face he’d made when Engie had cornered him, and Demo found himself laughing so hard he’d started to cry. That’s when he’d turned and caught Soldier looking.

If he hadn’t been so close, he could have probably brushed it off as a glare, the usual look of neutral-to-annoyed that passed across Soldier’s face whenever Demo drew attention to himself. But they were standing right next to each other, and even the grey M1 helmet couldn’t hide that he’d been watching Demo’s profile in open ardor. As soon as Demo noticed, the moment was gone. Soldier turned away in an uncharacteristically jerky motion, knocking Demo’s hand off in the same moment. (Only then did Demo realize it had been resting there the whole time.)

“Hit the showers ladies!” Soldier declared curtly. “Do NOT let this victory dull your senses! I want you up and fighting again tomorrow, seven sharp!”

With that he turned, and everyone paid as much to his declarations of curfew as they always did, which was none. Demo was the only one who had captured the moment in memory, and when it passed he wasn’t sure if he believed it.

So he’d been watching. Watching, all the time. Every moment the team spent together he’d steal glances at Soldier, just to make sure he wasn’t crazy, but the madman never failed to disappoint. Whenever Demo looked his way Soldier would suddenly find something terribly interesting across the room, or abruptly have something to say to Medic, or just plain spasm like he’d been poked with a cattle prod. Once, when they’d gathered for a rare night around the campfire to chase away the desert night and pass around a few beers, he’d looked to his left to see Soldier gazing at him with faintest of smiles. Not that manic run-if-you-see-it-pointed-at-you smile he sometimes sported while firing a rocket at some REDs huddled around a dispenser, but something soft—almost out of place on his weathered features.

It was utterly ridiculous to believe; yet here it was. The idea that Soldier could have a crush was so ridiculous it was hard to comprehend, but now that Demo had confirmed his beliefs, he wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip through his fingers. After all, how often did he get a chance to take Soldier down a peg? The man was resistant to most insults, most types of bullets, and every emotion beside _anger_ and _psychopathy_ , yet _this_ was something he was obviously abashed by. If Demo was going to get back at him for his incessant berating, for his early morning wakeup calls, for his refusal to wear pants, then this might be his only opportunity.

He wasn’t going to start small, either.

Another victory, and Scout got to be they day’s hero for bringing in the final intelligence. Speaking of untamable egos, Scout had no problem eating every drop of prasie, though he did have the sense to reel it in long enough to get even Heavy’s patented, “good job, tiny man!”

Demo treated him with a, “look at you ya’ little half-pint! I’m so proud I could kiss ya!”

“Gross man!” Scout said as he tried to dodge a (intentionally wet) kiss Demo plastered to the side of his hat.

“Demoman!” Soldier barked. “Control yourself, you useless drunk.”

Demo grinned. “Aw, sounds like someone is _jealous_.”

Sniper, bless him, snickered from his spot leaned against the respawn wall. In an instant, Soldier turned beet red, and pulled his helmet down further over his eyes. “That is unseemly conduct, private,” he said, though there was no disguising that his voice was quite a few octaves higher than normal. “Remember that!” And then he was gone again, leaving Sniper and Demo a good chuckle at his expense.

It was just so easy to rankle him now that Demo knew his buttons. Demo was a tactile person normally, but now even while sober he laid it on extra thick, hanging an arm around Soldier whenever he got the chance, spending those fireside team moments next to him on the log. At first it was great watching Soldier try to shrug him off, but then the strangest thing happened: Soldier stopped seeming to care. Where once he’d been wriggling free from Demo’s drunkenly given embraces, instead he’d just sit there, and it’d fall on Demoman to let go, not that Demo ever really did. (It was always easier to hold a conversation when a little tipsy and leaning on someone else.) Same with those longing looks: quick glances to the side had instead been replaced with a stare returned, and a smile that was actually so wide it was dopey, even in the realm of adorable.

Demo was flabbergasted. Had Soldier changed his mind? He doubted that Soldier had the capacity to play mind games with him, so either it was that, or Demo really had been making mountains out of molehills this whole time. It was enough to make him question his sanity, and he wished he’d verified with his team like he’d want to begin with.

“I mean, it’s obvious, right?” he asked a barely aware Scout as most of the team wandered from the fire back to the base. “Everyone can see it.”

“Your crush on Soldier?” Scout asked as he tossed his baseball against a nearby rock. “Uh, yeah, basically everyone.”

Demo spat out the swig of scrumpy he’d been taking. “What??”

Scout looked up, finally paying attention. “That’s what we were talkin’ about, right?”

“I- no! No, I do not have a ‘crush’ on Soldier.” Demo stumbled over his words. “What- why would you even think that?”

Scout shrugged. “It’s pretty obvious, pally. You’re all over him basically all the time, and everyone always sees you staring at him. You’re not exactly subtle: even Pyro could tell, and _he_ spends all his time in fantasyland. To be honest, it’s pretty embarassin’.”

Demo sputtered over his words while Scout just kept staring at him, now with a cocked eyebrow. “I do _not_ have a crush on Soldier,” Demo repeated firmly. “ _He_ has a crush on _me_.”

Scout barked out a laugh so brutal Demo immediately felt his ears grow hot. “Ha! I got news for you buddy: Soldier doesn’t like _anyone_ , and if he did, it definitely wouldn’t be you.”

Demo swallowed, suddenly not wanting to carry on this conversation anymore. He gathered himself up and went to the base, leaving Scout toss his ball against the rocks with a rhythmic _thwack thwack thwack_.

This was all ridiculous. He didn’t _like_ Soldier, he _hated_ Soldier, he just…was committing to the part a little too convincingly, enough to fool his teammates. After all, to enact his revenge he’d had to act descent to the man, or at least pretend to not know about the Soldier’s affections. So he’d stopped acting so outwardly exasperated, that was all. It’s not that he _liked_ being so close to Soldier all the time, it was just that the teasing brought out a flicker of triumph in the pit of his stomach.

Triumph. Yeah. That’s what that feeling was.

Demo paced around his room, accidently kicking a sticky grenade and then spending the next four minutes hastily deactivating it. When he was done he sat on his bed and wrung his hands.

This was a bad idea from the start. And even if it wasn’t, he definitely shouldn’t have let it go on this long, not when the whole base knew. Or thought they new. Suspected really. Fucking Scout.

All in all, it was a mortifying thought.

He’d have get himself back on track. No more provoking Soldier, no more making a fool of himself. He’d do his damn job and nothing more.

They won again that morning. In a strange turn of events Soldier clapped _Demo_ warmly on the back as they entered the respawn room, congratulating the BLUs at large. Demo stepped away immediately, worried how it might somehow implicate him again. There was a moment where Soldier’s hand hung in the place where it’d gently pressed against Demo’s spine, but then it slowly withdrew, leaving behind nothing. Demo stalked back to base, resisting the urge to look back.

It felt like everyone was mocking him, all the damn time. Every whisper or barely overheard conversation prickled the back of his neck, assuring him that they were all talking about what a big joke he was to fall for the Soldier. Like some sort of pathetic sap. He put twice as much effort into Demoman-ing as he usually did, but the humiliation in his gut didn’t abate.

One night—after a devastating loss, despite his best efforts—he was in his room trying to distract himself with new stickylauncher plans, when someone knocked at his door.

He froze. He’d never had a visitor in all the years he’d been working at BLU, and his mind could only come up with the worst situations as to why they might disturb him now. If it was because of the rumors, was someone going to accuse him of depraved behavior? He was sure the team was more open minded than that—and for a fact that most of them swung that way anyway—but that didn’t stop him from jumping to conclusions.

So agitated was he, when he opened his door to reveal the Soldier, he just about swallowed his tongue.

“Demoman!” Soldier said shortly. “Permission to enter?”

Weakly, unable to conjure up the mental fortitude to come with a reason to say no, Demo stepped aside.

Soldier came in, and Demo closed the door out of habit, turning around to see Soldier marveling at the various wires and explosives hanging from the ceiling. “…I did not know you were building bombs up here.”

“Whenever I have some free time, aye. Did you want something, Soldier?”

Soldier straightened. “Ah. Yes. Right. I have noticed that you have been avoiding me.”

Demo stiffened. He had been, ignoring every glance shot his way, taking his food back to his room if Soldier occupied the only table in the mess hall.

“I would like to know if I have done something,” Soldier continued, looking like it was taking a considerable effort not to fidget. “You friendship is very important to me, I do not want to damage it if I can help it.”

Swallowing, Demo realized suddenly that this was what he had been waiting for: an opportunity to drive the point home, freely offered. That’s what this whole charade had been about, right? This moment? If he just said what he’d been meaning to, the whole debacle could be over.

Too afraid to say anything else, he opened his mouth and sneered, “ _friendship_? Is that what this is?”

It should have been worth it to see the panic suddenly coil in Soldier’s shoulders.

Strangely, it wasn’t.

“…What’s that supposed to mean, private?” Soldier demanded.

“I know Soldier, _everybody_ bloody knows,” Demo lied. But if it would sink the knife in deeper, then so be it. “I know you’re ‘sweet’ on me, and I’ve been messing with you.”

Although his arms were still tucked in formation behind his back, Soldier’s mouth hung open slightly. “I don’t…”

“That no clear enough for you, you bloody idiot? Are you as stupid as you look?” Demo snarled. “You’re a blighted menace is what you are. You spent the first year on this team talking fighting words about me homeland, running your bloody mouth about my eye, my kilt, _whatever_ suits your fancy, and you thought I would ever like you back? _I’ve been leading you on_ you dunderhead. Get that through your thick skull, if there even is one underneath that soup bowl.”

“Oh,” was all Soldier said. “Oh.” He stared forward, eyes still hidden underneath that relic of a hat, and Demo felt that shame in his stomach grow that much worse. “…I will be going now.”

And he did. Demo slammed the door on his way out.

Then he stared at the door a while. Revenge didn’t feel as good as he thought. Maybe if he’d been able to see Soldier’s face when he’d said it then he’d be more satisfied, but at soon as he thought that he realized he really didn’t want to know the full extend of what he’d done.

He took to the scrumpy immediately. When he worked his way through that, he withdrew a bottle of vodka he kept tucked underneath the bed for emergencies, and stared at it.

If he drank this, he would pass out, wake up tomorrow, and never speak to Soldier again. He knew himself and his limits well enough to tell that, but whether he actually wanted to was a different matter. It was no secret that Demo was not an introspective man, that he was free with his emotions, but that they all came out garbled and slurred. No one could make sense of his problems, least of all him.

But despite that, this time even he knew that he had lied. That he _had_ disliked the Soldier at one point, but although he still shouted abuses at the RED Demoman every now and again, it had been long time since he’d been as callous to Demo. Demo had liked playing those flirtatious games for more than just the spite of it, had enjoyed spending time on cold nights pressed up against someone he considered a friend.

Demo mulled the vodka bottle over in his hand. He didn’t want this to be the end, no matter how much the blissful oblivion of intoxication called to him. He set the drink on the nightstand.

Soldier wasn’t in his room. Part of Demo wanted to sigh in relief, admit that it was now out of his hands and go back to bed. But the other part, the other part was still hurting, and it lead him on a painstaking hunt through the base.

It took him another hour. He even checked some of Spy’s preferred hiding spots, where he—predictably— did actually run into Spy. The sewers, the boiler room, back to Soldier’s room to see if he had missed him…finally, after checking everywhere, Demo remembered there was a rickety little staircase to the roof.

Soldier was smoking, staring up at the stars as he knocked a bit of ash off the roof’s edge. The cigar was finely made, and he nearly it dropped as Demo made his presence known.

“Before you say anything,” Demo said quickly. “I’m sorry. I said a lot of things I didn’t mean. I…er…wasn’t in a good place.”

There was a wrinkle at the corner of Soldier’s nose, a telltale indicator that he was narrowing his eyes. “You were less drunk then than you are now,” he pointed out stiffly. It sounded like he was trying to keep something out of his voice.

What was true, and if there was any chance of hiding it, it vanished as Demo wobbled slightly on the final step. “Aye but, that’ll make me more honest, I think. Before I was…angry.” That didn’t seem to cover it, but like always his words couldn’t explain all the things that went on in his heart. “There’s no real excuse for what I said.”

“Those were very specific things to say and not mean.” There was bitterness in Soldier’s words now, and it suddenly sunk in that Soldier could actually be hurt. This whole time the idea that Soldier had feelings had been an abstract idea in Demo’s mind, a roundabout way to get back at him. It struck him he might hurt just as badly as Demo would in this situation.

But now he could see the truth of it: there were still ways to be cruel to a man.

Demo’s shoulders sagged. “I…aye. Some things were true. It did start off as a way to get back at you for…grudges I guess. It was a stupid thing and I’m sorry and I- sometimes I’m an arse and I have no idea why, you know? I just want to be petty and I don’t think until later, ‘why did I do that?’ I thought if the team knew you had…I dunno…emotions, it might bring you down a bit.”

“…Why?”

“What?” Demo looked up. He’d been having trouble looking at the Soldier, not the least because he was swaying in place.

“Why would I care whether the team knew I liked you?” He paused, and looked out over the badlands, then scoffed. “Would have been damned easier that way, if I could get _anyone_ to know.”

Demo swallowed. There was…so much more to the Soldier than he had thought. He supposed he could have known, back when he was still pretending this was all just a game, but he hadn’t been paying attention.

“I…guess I dunno,” Demo admitted. “I suppose I would have felt that way. I certainly cared when the team knew I liked you.”

Soldier spun his head quickly back to Demo, and he caught the briefest flash of those bright blue eyes under the helmet. Just as swiftly he stiffened again. “You are doing it again, aren’t you? Tricking me.”

“No! I’m not, I swear.” Cautiously, Demo moved off the stars and around the perimeter of the roof, using the railing for support. “But I suppose that’s a fair thing to assume about me. Considering.”

Soldier eyed his slow progress. “If you fall off, I’m not going to try and catch you.”

“Fair enough,” Demo laughed, and it was almost, _almost_ a moment of camaraderie. It was gone as soon as he stood in front of the Soldier. “I do like ya Soldier, I like you a lot. I think maybe I-” He made sure to cut himself off. “So I’m sorry. Sorry for being an shitehead from the beginning. For going ahead when I should have backed down.”

There was a long, long moment as they stood there, a few shooting stars passing overhead.

“I don’t forgive you,” Soldier said eventually, and though he had been expecting it Demo still looked down at his shoes, feeling terribly far away from his own body. “You have been tricking me on purpose and you have been a bad friend. But.”

Demo lifted his head.

“I believe you. That you aren’t tricking me now.”

“I’m not,” Demo repeated.

“I know.” Soldier looked at the sky. “We can still be friends. I would like to forgive you. Some day.”

“Thank you Soldier,” Demo said and felt the next words choke in his throat. It was more than he deserved, maybe.

He still wanted to reach out, hold Soldier’s hand that was resting gently on the railing, wrap him in a hug again. But he would take his absolution where he could get it, and for now, being here under the stars with someone he cared about would have to be enough.

It looked like there would be a meteor shower tonight. Thousands of little stars, falling, only hitting the ground when they were long out of sight.


End file.
